hyderabad – new gtlds - issues for subsequent roundsschd.ws/hosted_files/icann572016/f1/i57...

HYDERABAD – New gTLDs - Issues for Subsequent Rounds EN

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HYDERABAD – New gTLDs - Issues for Subsequent Rounds Saturday, November 05, 2016 – 11:00 to 12:30 IST ICANN57 | Hyderabad, India

JORGE CANCIO: Hello? Good morning, everybody. Welcome to this GAC session

on new gTLDs. My name is Jorge Cancio. I'm the Swiss GAC

representative, and I've been asked to lead this session. So you

will have to deal with me for 90 minutes. First of all, I would like

to welcome all of you, both GAC members, GAC observers, and

members of other constituencies. I would especially like to

welcome the presence here of the two co-chairs of the PDP

working group on subsequent procedures, Jeff Neuman and Avri

Doria. And Avri is over there. Come to the table, Avi. You will

need to be here. And I will first explain a little bit the purpose of

this session, as I see it, is that we continue with our dialogue,

both internally and with other parts of the community,

especially the co-chairs of the PDP, on this effort to review the

policies of the last round, the 2012 round, and also the possible

recommendations for potential adaptations of such policies for

future expansions of the gTLD space.

I think it's very important to keep up this dialogue on a

continuous basis and also in the spirit of the draft

recommendations that the contact group of the GAC and the


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GNSO developed and where this more interactive approach

between our constituencies is being recommended. I think it's

important that we also link the work of our internal working

groups in the GAC with what is being discussed in other parts of

the community, especially with this PDP, which will be key in

any further expansion of the gTLDs. And that's why I think it's a

very good opportunity to continue with the dialogue we started

in Helsinki and which continued with our input to the

overarching questions developed by the PDP working group and

to maintain this on the a basis.

As to the agenda for this session, apart from this introductory

words, Tom Dale will be so kind and introduce us to the briefing

developed for this session very quickly and then we will have a --

a longer discussion with the PDP co-chairs. First, we would like

to ask them to in four or five minutes puts up to date on the

state of play of their work, and then I would like to ask them

what is their initial reaction to the input we sent in July to the

overarching questions, whether they already identify any

sticking points or also whether they identify already areas of

common agreement. That would also be nice. And then after

this, in a short dialogue, we would go into calling upon the

different GAC topic leads who have been working on issues like

diversity and support programs, also on categories, on IDNs, on

community-based applications, on geographic names, on safety,


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and abuse mitigation concerns and make inputs and seek also

reactions from the co-chairs and from any other GAC members,

GAC observers, and I guess we also can call on other interested

people.

Finally, we will discuss a bit of procedure, possible text for our

GAC communique on these issues, and also some internal stuff

on how we can best coordinate internally to participate in these

community efforts.

So with this, I would like to pass on the floor to Tom to

introduce us to the briefing paper. Thank you, Tom.

TOM DALE: Thank you, Jorge. Good morning, everybody. Yes, it's me again

talking to yet another brief that ACIG provided to you, the

document on screen, and which I'll summarize very briefly now -

- no pun intended -- is -- was included in the briefing pack that

was sent to GAC members approximately two weeks ago. We

tried to cover in -- in that briefing three sets of issues, process,

timing, and coordination with regard to new gTLD policy.

Secondly, public policy issues and GAC advice, what has been

done to date. And finally, a bit of a -- an estimate, if you like, of

what will or indeed what might happen here in Hyderabad.


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With regard to the process issues, if we just scroll down a little

bit, please, on the document, thank you. You heard yesterday in

the GAC meeting with the GNSO about a number of existing

policy development process working groups that are being

conducted. The subsequent procedures group for new gTLDs

was noted and we'll talk more about that in a moment. The

working group on rights protection mechanisms and also the

one on IGO and INGO curative rights protections. The brief also

notes that there are a number of cross-community processes

that are relevant as well to the new gTLD policy discussion. The

competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice review, the

CCT review, is presenting some preliminary findings here in

Hyderabad, and there will be a meeting between the GAC and

the chair of that team next week.

There is also the cross-community working group on the use of

country and territory names as TLDs, and that is being covered

in the GAC's meeting with the ccNSO short -- tomorrow, I believe.

There are some ICANN processes and we've drawn to your

attention in particular in the brief the ongoing work that ICANN

is doing on metrics to measure the impact of new gTLDs,

including what ICANN terms the gTLD marketplace health index.

Finally, there are a number of GAC processes which are

extremely relevant. Again, as you heard in the meeting with the


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GNSO yesterday, the community generally is aware that the GAC

is working on issues through a number of its working groups

including geographic names, public safety issues, work on

community applications which will be covered later in this

session, and also IGO protections which, of course, the GAC

discussed yesterday.

With regard to timing, the -- the subsequent procedures PDP is -

- has indicated that it is still working to finalize its work by the

third quarter of 2018. Again, as you heard yesterday, it is a

longer term process and a very comprehensive one.

Coordination issues, the brief simply makes the point that if you

think there should be some -- some master plan or coordination

process for all of this, our view, our advice to you is that that

doesn't exist because that's not the way -- that's not the way the

ICANN system works and that's just -- makes it Democratic but

challenging.

Very quickly, the GAC has previously advised the board on a

number of issues through its communique and other processes.

The GAC has provided advice most recently in the Helsinki

communique concerning process and timing issues and talked

about the need for a proper sequence of work of the review of

the recent round and outcomes from that before too many

decisions are made concerning future rounds or indeed future

processes because in future there -- rounds are only one way of


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introducing new gTLDs. The GAC has provided some substantive

policy advice concerning underserved regions in particular and

long-standing issues which the GAC believes requires resolution

such as Red Cross and Red Crescent designations and names.

Finally, the GAC responded shortly after the Helsinki meeting, as

I recall, to a series of overarching questions which were put to all

of the SOs and ACs by the -- by the working group on subsequent

procedures. The GAC provided a comprehensive answer to

those overarching questions and you'll hear a little bit more

about how those are being dealt with. So that's what the GAC

has done and what the GAC has said very, very briefly.

Finally, with regard to what will happen in Hyderabad, our

understanding was that yes, the PDP working group will have a -

- if it's not already had a face-to-face meeting, I believe it has,

CCT review work is continuing. The GAC will be briefed on a

number of issues this morning in this session as well. I think

that's the summary. Thank you, Jorge.

JORGE CANCIO: Thank you so much, Tom. So we are all on the same page, I

hope, now. And I think it's the right moment to go over to our

guests here, Jeff and Avri, and see how you can update us first

on -- well, how is it working? It's -- it must be really a challenge.

How many people are participating? How many work tracks you


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have? All that stuff and also, of course, about the substance and

how you see the timeline. And after that, we could open -- open

the floor for some questions on those general matters and then

go to the overarching questions, right? Is that agreed for you?

Okay. So over to you.

JEFF NEUMAN: Thank you. I'm Jeff Neuman. I'm one of the co-chairs of the

subsequent procedures working group. I'll start, and then Avri

will jump in if -- if she has anything to add, which I'm sure she

will.

So just a reminder of a little bit of history that in 2007 the GNSO

passed, by a consensus of the GNSO community, a policy which

states that there shall be a predictable process for the

introduction of new Generic Top Level Domains and it was

envisioned by that consensus policy that there wouldn't just be

one, I'll use the term here "round," but that it would be an

ongoing process that it wouldn't just be stopped after what

ultimately became the 2012 round. And so from that we took

the policy and formed this subsequent procedures working

group to really work with and assimilate all of the other

activities that are going on in the ICANN community and all --

specifically the reviews that were mentioned by -- by Tom and

by Jorge initially. And so our role is a -- our task is a large one.


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We have so far around 130 active participants in the group and

an additional 40 or 50, I haven't looked recently, but 40 or 50

observers to that group. Even though there -- it sounds like a lot,

you know like many working groups, it -- there's -- there are a

few people that are very active and then others that just kind of

monitor what's going on. So we always have room for more

active participants, if anyone else wants to join. That's my

commercial, and hopefully others will. And Tom has been a

participant and Jorge and Kavouss, and so we thank those

participants and welcome the participation of others.

As Tom said, our timeline is to finish everything up by the third

quarter of 2018. In between then and now we anticipate having

a second -- or at least one more community consultation

questions that are sent out to all of the advisory committees, the

supporting organizations, the constituencies that will be more

detailed than the overarching questions which I personally want

to thank all of you for responding to. In fact, the GAC was the

only advisory committee that -- or actually the SSAC also

responded. But we did not get responses from some of our own

constituencies but we did get response from the GAC. So thank

you very much. We also got responses to the first overarching

issues from the intellectual property constituency, the Registry

Stakeholder Group, and the ccNSO. So there was some

response to those comments, but we hope that there's even


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more participation when we do the community consultation

number 2, which we're hoping to do in or around January of

2017. So just a few months from now.

So initially the group worked on those overarching issues which

the GAC responded to and we can talk a little bit about after I

just go through some process issues. We've been discussing the

responses as a full working group the last two months or so.

And then we also broke the full working group down into four,

what we call work tracks. And I know it's confusing to keep the

terminology in place because some people call them work

streams, but we have to be careful because the work streams

are the accountability processes. That's not us. So we call them

work tracks.

The first work track is dealing with issues including applicant

support. It's dealing with issues around overall process, things

like should there be a program to certify registry service

providers before the next application window opens up so that

you don't necessarily have to evaluate, from a technical

perspective, each individual application, if they're using the

same provider.

It's to achieve greater efficiency and hopefully a measure to

bring the costs down for applicants for the next application

window.


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We also have work track number 2, which is dealing with the

legal, regulatory, and contractual issues that have arisen out of

the 2012 round. So that will include things -- I know areas that

the GAC discusses, including the notion of categories. I know

that's a subject that's been talked about since 2007, 2008. I

certainly remember Bertrand's work on that issue. So if there

are to be categories like brands, for example, or geographic top-

level domains, we are looking at issues in that work track on

whether they should have separate contracts or registry

agreements. We are also looking at issues about reserve names.

So this is where the work of Olga and the geographic names as

well as the work of the use of country and territory names cross-

community working group would relate as only a part of the

reserve names. But it would also -- that work track also deals

with issues around other types of reserve names including the

ability for registry operators to reserve names to provide for

what they call premium name pricing for generic top level

domains. So we'll look into some of those issues as well.

Work track 3 is charged with looking at issues around string

contention, looking at the objection process, and looking at

community evaluation -- community process evaluations or CPE,

which again is some work as Tom has mentioned that the GAC is

looking at. And I just received a copy of the study that was done,


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and I'm -- got a chance to skim that study and look very much

forward to discussing that in more detail.

And work track 4 was set up to deal with the technical issues.

You know, were the right questions asked of registry operators

to perform a technical evaluation, a security evaluation,

financial evaluation. It also -- is also looking at issues around

Internationalized Domain Names so if you recall, there were

certain rules that were put into place to deal with IDN variants,

there were rules put into place to prevent the registration of -- or

the use of single character IDN terms which unlike in the ASCII

language or in the English language single characters could

often denote in some languages complete phrases or thoughts

or ideas. And so while that was prohibited in the last round, that

is something that we are discussing as to whether the

prohibition should be extended.

The work track 4 is also looking at universal awareness issues

and issues that arose out of name collision. You know, were the

right processes put into place in order to remedy the possible

name collisions that in theory could have taken place.

So it's really a large task for all of us, breaking down into those

four work tracks. On the overarching issues, the -- like I said, the

group, the full group has been working on analyzing the

comments that we did receive. I think there are some areas of


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agreement. For example, there -- it seemed as if all of the

comments that were received did support a notion of having

additional new top level domains, although there were certainly

different opinions as to the timing of those. Right? There are

some groups that would like to move faster than others. There --

you know, the GAC has expressed its view that -- its advice that

any new subsequent procedures should only happen when all of

the relevant reviews are completed, and so I think just by the

general nature of timing and how long our group is going to

take, I think that that will happen, for the most part.

There was one study that actually wasn't mentioned earlier

which just came out which was the interim report from the

group that's doing the review on the root stability study or the

root stability which came out with an initial finding. It's a long

report. I haven't gotten a chance to read it all, but initially

seems to find that there has been no effect on the root zone

from the introduction of new top-level domains in the process

and manner in which it has been introduced. So while it says,

you know, because of all of the different procedures that had to

take place, TLDs have been delegated on a fairly steady, slow

stream, and that has not had any adverse effect on the root. So

there are some cautions in that report, but ultimately found that

there was no harmful effect from the introduction of these right


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now over a thousand new top-level domains. So that's -- that's

something that is good news for us and for moving forward.

The other discussions in the overarching issues included

whether to proceed in the term rounds or whether there should

be some other process, including a first come, first served

process. So do you just basically have it open and as

applications come in you process them but there -- it's not a

process where you say okay, we're going to open it up in five

months from now and we're, you know, going to close it in nine

months from now. It's a process where you would open it up

and it would stay open forever. Obviously there are a lot of

issues if that were to be adopted on how you would review and

make corrections, course corrections, or how you would put that

-- input that into that type of system. But a proposal that's come

out that seemed to garner some support within the working

group, again these are not even at the stage of being called

initial recommendations, but one such proposal has arisen

where you could do an ongoing process but have what we call

application windows, predictable application windows. So an

example would be, let's say you wanted to have two windows

per year. You say in quarter one -- and I'm just using a calendar

year just for ease -- but let's say in January, you would open up

an application window, accept applications in January, have

objections or public comments in the month of February,


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February and March, and then you would start the evaluation on

those in quarter number two where you can then -- I'm sorry,

actually I got that a little backwards. Let me go back. You would

start accepting applications in January for the entire quarter. So

January, February, and March. Then in the months of April, May,

and June you would receive public comments, objection, and

early warnings, if that were a system that was still put into place

for the subsequent procedures. And then in quarter 3, you

would start the evaluations. So July, August, September.

And you could -- in parallel with doing the evaluations of what

was received in the first quarter, you could in quarter three start

the next application window.

So it's what we call a hybrid approach where you have

predictable application windows. You're not stopping and

having rounds and then having to do a full review after that

round closes, but basically doing predictable application

windows where you have enough time to submit applications,

enough time to submit comments or objections to those

applications and, of course, enough time to do evaluations after

the fact.

So this would help others that need to monitor applications as

they're submitted whether it's governments, whether it's rights

holders, trademark rights holders. That would be predictable.


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Otherwise, if you have a purely first come, first served process,

you governments, as well as rights holders and others, would

have to monitor every day to see if a new application came in.

And that would be extremely difficult and in a number of group's

opinions to monitor and, you know, having every day to check

okay. Was a new application filed that I now have to be

concerned about? In the hybrid approach, it would be okay, I

know that in quarter one there's going to be new applications

and in quarter three so I could set my schedule appropriately.

So that's another proposal that's being talked about. I hope I'm

not taking too much time here. But there's some other

overarching issues where there's some agreement but also some

divergence. The topic on categorization, while we think that

much of the community agrees with the -- at least the categories

that were in the Applicant Guidebook or that arose afterwards,

things like brands that also geographic applications, community

applications. Those are recognized in the existing Applicant

Guidebook.

Most of the community seemed to favor at least those

categories going forward. But there have been discussions of

potentially other categories. There's no consensus yet in the

group.

I do want to point out also at this stage that, from the purely

GNSO perspective, the way that we are working is that, if we


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cannot find consensus within the community for changing

something that already happened in the existing -- or that's

already in the existing policy or in the existing Applicant

Guidebook, it likely would be our recommendation that things

stay the way they are. So we're really trying to build consensus,

especially on areas that we all acknowledge could use some

improvement.

So I do want to point that out as it's pretty important in our

operations.

So I think there's a lot more I could talk about and probably will.

But I certainly want to provide opportunity for feedback and

opportunity for Avri, if you want to add anything as well.

AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Yes, this is Avri speaking. I just want to add a few

things. As usual, Jeff's done a good job of covering most

anything I would want to say, Jeff has.

First of all, I want to talk about the schedule a little bit more

since that was something that was a concern of GAC's in the

communiques as such that said the reviews have to be done

before a next round happens.

And I think, if you look at our schedule, we very much are

working with the notion that those reviews feed into the work


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that we're doing. So it was always the case that, even though

the process was meant to be a continual one, that we knew that

we did not understand all that we were doing when we made the

first set of policies and that we would need to do some in-depth

reviews to figure out. Also, PDPs are done very differently now

than they were in 2007 when this one was done.

In 2007 a PDP was a set of principles and a set of guidelines and

a set of some direct recommendations without going very

deeply into detail.

These days, when we do a PDP, we do go down into the detail.

And the detail is something that is going to look at the -- you

know, look at the application guidebook, which was not, per se,

a policy item but was something implemented upon the policy

at a time when we didn't do implementation review teams.

So the policy stands. The AGB needs to be looked at for its

concordance with that policy and its appropriate applicability

going forward. I wanted to mention that the schedule -- so I did

mention that the schedule includes taking into account the

reviews.

One of the things we want to make sure that we avoid and are

saying this up front, is we want to avoid getting to the end of the

day and having an impasse on various issues. We desperately

want to avoid getting to the point where the GNSO has approved


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a set of recommendations, we've sent them to the Board, and

there is GAC advice that is contrary to what we're putting

forward.

That sort of, you know, it's not in the charter, per se. But I think

it's very much in the mentality in the chairs and the people

working on it that that would constitute some kind of failure for

our process. So we're very happy that, A, we're talking to you

now, B, that we have a fairly good participation from some very

knowledgeable GAC folks who are contributing and making

suggestions. So, hopefully, that will help. Hopefully, when there

are impasses, we can talk about them.

I wanted to mention that, in addition to the community

comment two that will be coming along, which is the specific

work track, we will have the standard initial report review. And

that's due probably around the last quarter of next year.

So October 17 is our projection for the initial report.

January of '17 is when we plan to ask for the community

comment two. So just to have an idea of what that schedule is.

Let me see. I advise also the new GNSO liaison to the GAC is a

member of our group, is a member of several of the other

groups. So I advise you to take great advantage of that contact

point. In addition to us, in addition to your own participants,


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you do have that resource. So I suggest you make good use of

that resource. Ask him for explanations of what we're doing, if

it's not clear. And he can always bring us in.

And let me see. Did I cover -- yep. That's pretty much the -- that

I jotted down while Jeff was talking that I wanted to add. And, of

course, I, too, am willing to answer questions, anytime,

anywhere.

JORGE CANCIO: Okay. Thank you so much, Jeff and Avri. I think we covered the

topics we wanted to cover on the two items of state of play, of

the PDP working group, and also your initial reaction to the

overarching questions and discussion. However, on this, before

opening the floor on these general issues, I would like to ask you

very specifically if you see any sticking point already between

what we said in our answer to the overarching questions, which

may come from previous GAC advice, and how the discussion is

developing within the working group. It's a difficult question,

but I had to put it.

JEFF NEUMAN: So this is Jeff Neuman. I think so far what we've seen it probably

will not sound as a surprise. But there's definitely a divergence

of opinion at this point from people in the community on issues


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like communities. It's -- it's been -- the GAC's response to

encourage communities and public interests. And there are

others in the community that think that the process of

determining communities in the last round was not a very

effective one and, therefore, it should be abandoned. So there's

definitely areas that we need to find compromise. Certainly,

there's a difference of opinions on a number of the reserve

names issues, including the geographic names.

There's -- there are a number of generic terms and brand names

that we know conflict with names of countries and territories

and rivers and bridges and mountains. And so there is certainly

a difference of opinion of a number of the groups as to the types

of protections that those should receive.

You're already dealing with the difference of opinions on IGOs

and -- although that's not within our working group.

But that is an area of divergence we'll have to work through.

And I think just the whole notion of how we establish -- although

the entire community is in support of the notion of having a

predictable process, I think there are certain -- there is certainly

divergence on how to achieve that predictability. And so there's

a divergence of views. And I'm trying to be as balanced and

neutral as possible. But certainly a difference of what would be

the rights and procedures of groups to object and how to avoid


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changing the rules midway after applications are received. I

know that is a common goal. There's just a divergence of views

of how to do that.

Those are just a couple of the areas. Fortunately, we are not

that deep into the specific work tracks at this point. I'm sure

there will be other areas of divergence that we'll have to work

through. But right now I think the geographic names, the notion

of the input into the process and what stages are certainly seen

as areas of divergence at this point. But also there's divergence

not just between the GNSO and GAC, but divergence within the

GNSO of whether there should be certain types of top-level

domains that should get priority. Should communities have

priority over generics? Should brands have priority over

generics and communities? Should geographic TLDs have

priority?

So there are divergent views even within the GNSO that we're

trying to work through. So by no means is divergence

exclusively that between the GAC and the GNSO, but certainly

within the Internet community. And those are going to be some

tough issues to work through. And we're hoping in the new era

of the multistakeholder post-transition model that we will have

the incentive to sit down and work this out earlier rather than

later so that we can call this post-transition IANA and ICANN a

success. So I'm looking forward to it.


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JORGE CANCIO: Great. That was a very thoughtful answer, I think. And also very

-- with a lot of content in it. I think that Avri wanted to say

something.

AVRI DORIA: Yeah. I just wanted to add a little. In fact, I would, actually -- I

think Jeff almost said it, that in many cases we're actually

predivergence, because we're still sort of forming the notions.

Now one of the things that I think we'll find -- and this comes up

in examples like communities -- is communities was not a well-

developed notion in the policy recommendations.

There was a statement about the protection of communities

and the priority in a contention set of communities. But there

was very little discussion about how one defined a community

or what the scope of that was.

And that was pretty much taken up in the application

guidebook and not so much the policy -- nor did we build too

much on the work that had been done in the previous rounds

with supported TLDs.

So I think in some of those, part of what is predivergence, in a

sense, is we've seen areas that need more work. Areas where we


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put something, it came out, it sort of worked, it largely didn't

work. And now we need to look at where we fix it. And there's a

multiplicity of views, I would say, more often than there is

divergence at this time.

JORGE CANCIO: Thank you, Avri. As I said before, the plan is to call now on the

topic leads and the GAC to tackle some of the issues where we

are seeing that there are -- well, let's say, matters that we need

more work together to sort things out. Instead of divergence or

even predivergence. So, if that is okay with you, we will proceed

like that. We have gone just over the half of our time right now.

I would like to very much invite Alice and the -- as co-chair of the

Underserved Regions Working Group, to give us her view about

the issues related to diversity and the applicant support -- the

applicant support program, which are of interest, of course, for

the GAC, as you already mentioned before.

ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Jorge. Thank you very much for that

presentation and introduction.

Alice Munyua, co-chair of the Underserved Regions Working

Group, although we're trying to change that name to something


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much more positive so it's not underserved. It's much more

positive maybe. Next meeting. But that's an overused term.

Anyway, to the joint applicant support program where the GAC

provided advice for the creation of that initiative and

participated very actively in it -- I was one of the people that was

part of the team that created it. It was created to support

applicants from developing countries, developing regions and

was taken quite well. A community-based initiative taken quite

well where the Board actually approved a seed funding of about

2 million to assist in various aspects of it. The first was financial

assistance for applicants, the pro bono services as well as

funding mechanisms.

So, when the new gTLD program was launched in 2011, we

received some applications. But those were very few. And I

think we attributed that to the lack of a well-organized outreach

and awareness campaign which we felt was woefully lacking as

well as a lack of understanding, I think of the complexity of the

application process and the timing.

In addition, I think Andrew Mack has provided, I think, at the

request of the CCT review, provided research findings that

actually point exactly to these challenges that we find. And one

of them was that lack of knowledge, the complexity of applying,

the complexity of understanding the Applicant Guidebook. You


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know, most of us couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand

it myself, even though I was part of the team that, for example,

came up with a GAC scorecard. It was really complex. As well as

the fact that we actually did not do enough. And I'm saying "we"

because I was part of the JAS working group to create awareness

prior to launching the new gTLD program. So I think there are

very, very critical lessons to be learned here. And I must say I've

been looking for any indication of any review or any research

that has been done as to what extent the JAS program worked

or did not work. And there's nothing yet. So I think we may

need to look at that very critically so that we can understand

where the challenges lie and perhaps contribute to creating a

program that's going to speak to some of these challenges.

One of the biggest issues I think we have to contend with is

access is still an issue. When I'm talking about access here, I'm

talking about access broadly. It goes beyond the DNS anyway.

And -- yeah. So how we look at that is something that perhaps a

working group, the diversity working group or any -- the working

group dealing with this specifically will have to consider. They'll

have to consider the issue of access and how that relates to the

understanding of the business model that is being proposed

here. And I don't have an answer to that. I don't think we have

an answer to that at the moment.


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In terms of providing a knowledge base, I think that we can take

of by ensuring that what -- the kind of material we're working

with for outreach and awareness is simple and can be

understood within the various contexts and the various regions.

In terms of -- we also feel that there's a lot of hand holding that

needs to be taken into consideration. There's the issue of price

and finance. And I don't know to what extent the two million

seed fund would be helpful, because it wasn't even exhausted in

the first place.

So considering how much needs to be put to place and perhaps

a discussion how to use the auction funds might be, you know,

something we link to.

Those who applied for it -- and here I'm going to be talking

about some of the controversial ones, for example, like .AFRICA

and the frustration that comes from that. We have an issue.

Those who applied for it got it, are being frustrated by the fact

that some of them have not been delegated. So we also have a

problem of understanding how this works and how this impacts

on our regions. And the more we're not able to solve this, as a

colleague of mine was reminding me, the more there's

frustration in terms of how do we get involved from underserved

from developing world, how do we get involved in the system

itself is actually not helping us. The supply is there, but we don't


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understand how to deal with the demand and the intricacies of

the demand.

So that's price and concerns around complexities.

And I think in terms of recommendation, one of them is

understanding how to create a much better outreach and

awareness program, one that speaks to the context -- to the very

unique context of the various developing regions. And

developing regions have their own uniqueness. The Africa

region is not similar to South America or Asia Pacific for that

matter.

And then the business models, understanding the business

models, and how those can be applied at the various regions is

also an important one. The global south needs perhaps

different business models, especially taken into consideration

the issues and challenges of access.

And then perhaps a longer term and consistent approach to

awareness. I'll keep speaking to that.

A longer term and consistent approach to outreach awareness

is really important as well as a system at the various levels. So

technical business models, the legal -- and to that end I know

that there was a report and request to reduce the insurance fees.

And the Board approved that, and that was waived. But I think


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more needs to be done. Even during the applicant support

program, I think the application fee was reduced to 47,000. But

we still did not get enough applications. So I think it's not just

the finances. It's how we deal with applications from developing

countries because they're unique in their nature. And that

actually links to the geographic names working group as well.

How we deal with those is also important because then it

actually points back to those who want to do business in the

ICANN model but cannot do it because of the various processes

that make it impossible or extremely difficult for us to be able to

participate effectively. I think I'll stop there. Thank you very

much.

JORGE CANCIO: That was really brilliant. Thank you very much, Alice. I think

that I've seen Avri and Jeff taking notes of many of these issues.

Anyway, we will try to send you the transcript. This is, after all,

an open meeting and some notes from the secretariat

summarizing this so you can really feed it into the work of the

PDP working group. I would ask you to make very short

reactions because we are running over time and we still need to

tackle a lot of issues. So please be brief.


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AVRI DORIA: Yeah. I can be very brief. I very much agree with, you know,

many of the things. I was also part of that applicant support

program. And it was very much a divergence between what the

applicant support program was suggesting and what we

eventually got. And it was very late. And there were even GAC

communique recommendations of lowered prices for

developing regions. I think that's what we were calling them.

Developing economies or developing regions. So the whole

pricing thing was something that was very much staff handled

and wasn't in the policy but is definitely something that we

should look at. So I think those are there.

We're just starting that part. We've just started sort of putting

together communication between the JAS chairs and our group

and trying to get that opinion. And the other thing that needs to

be blended in is there was some ALAC early work on analysis of

why it didn't work. So that we also need to feed in. But very

much appreciate that and very much aware of how that didn't

quite work.

And, in fact, that's putting it way too mildly.

JEFF NEUMAN: Yeah. Very quick, thank you for those comments. The thing I'd

like to add to what Avri said is that we'd like to put you in touch


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with that work track, which is work track one, because they're

looking for opinions on it. So we'd love to put you in touch.

The other thing that I think, if I could ask a favor from the GAC, is

that ICANN as an organization has continually seen its role as it

would violate some sort of neutrality if it promoted awareness of

generic top-level domains because it would promote certain

actors. And I think -- excuse me -- it would be very helpful for the

GAC to make a statement to say that no, actually we think

promoting the use of Generic Top Level Domains would, as

Andrew Mack found in his study, would actually help the

underserved nations to be aware of what's going on. So that, to

me, I think as a personal ask, I would love to see the GAC make

some sort of statement.

JORGE CANCIO: Thank you so much. If you agree, we would go to our topic leads

on IDNs, Manal, Wanawit. I would kindly ask you to be very brief,

like three or four minutes, if possible. So to allow for a small

discussion.

WANAWIT AHKUPUTRA: Okay. So I'll try to be very brief. I would like to bring to your

attentions on the number of applicants from 1,930 is only 66 are

geographical but 166 is the IDN. And we do sees that what effort


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that the GAC put on the IDN is not really visible or contributed.

And you heard the minister this morning about how important it

is to have the Internet that respond to the local language. That

approved mechanism also in IGF as the mechanism that will

reach the next billions. So I will call that to all the GACs, that

especially on the working track 4 on the technical aspects, we

experience ourself and how difficult it is to push the LGR, label

generation rules. I don't want to get into details, but before you

really can go to the IDN, you need to really start to works on the

LGR and the number of the country that participate in this or

establish. The panel is still (indiscernible) and if you really call

for the second level domain that already start to work the

number country are even more smaller than the first groups. In

Thailand we already start to works, and it tooks us more than a

year. It's very complex by nature. We are -- and why it is the role

of the GAC because there nobody else to push it through

because ccTLD have their own obligations on the domain. In the

discussion in the TLD meeting they also even say that they ain't

heavy, they're my brother in term of IDN because IDN is bring --

is up to the interpretation. CC may see it as the competitor but

some see it as the helping to expand the market.

So it's a role. I do see it an important role, GAC, to push the

communities, technical community, the ccTLD community to

really working on this issue. And I will tell you that even in


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Thailand we found a lot of things together with the technical

communities, the Thai language cannot be searched properly,

the sequencing and a lot of problems that we have

(indiscernible) assumptions and thanks to the works of GNSO

and ICANN that bring this issue in. One of the issues that I will

not touching on the geographical by nature in fact there is the

discussions on the GAC roles on the (indiscernible) geopolitical

impacts.

I just bring the issue that the working groups that the GAC might

need to discuss is, I experience myself that I can file the Thailand

on the IDN name on the second level. That are the issue that not

in the scope of discussion at all. And it may be the issue that the

GAC need to work and purports to reflect in the new Application

Guidebook that mainly led on both the track 2 registry

agreements or track 4 on the IDN aspect. Because the fast track

IDN have been established through the U.N. GTN and in the U.N.

GTN is already support the U.N. language plus the local

language. So the origin of the IDN not respect the geographical

name in six U.N. language. So if the IDN would file the name of

Thai that already in the U.N. GTN on the IDN in other country,

will that need to be addressed by the GAC? That's one of the

issues that we might need to address that issue before the

problem will stop to happen because we cannot treat the

geographical name in A label only. It should be respect in the U


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label as well. We have been learning that the first Application

Guidebook did not addressing that, so it's the role of GAC to

coming out with the proposals on how we can dealing with this

issues. That one of the first aspect of IDN that I do see that is -- it

need the GAC to address, at the level of the GAC and feedback to

this working group. Thank you.

JORGE CANCIO: Thank you so much, Wanawit, for these excellent remarks. I

guess Jeff and Avri also have taken note. Manal, would you like

to add something very briefly?

MANAL ISMAIL: Yes. I hope it's going to be brief. Just very quickly. I mean,

following on what Wanawit has already said, do we know how

many IDNs failed during the evaluation process in the past

round? I mean, we already have 166 that are delegated, if I

understand right. But I think it would be also useful to know

those who failed during the process and whether this was

because of technical failure or other financial issues or -- I think

this would be a good lesson to know.

Also, Jeff, you referred to name collision, and I was wondering,

is this one-to-one with variants or does this have some other

broader meaning? And third, I think it made a lot of sense that


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we -- as we start to introduce IDNs at the top-level domain that

we be too, too, too conservative, but I'm wondering whether

we're continuing with the same level of conserve -- being that

conservative, I mean, or have we already learned some lessons

from the past round and now we are more comfortable

introducing IDN at the top-level domains?

And finally, I think a predictable application window or an

ongoing process even are both far more better than the limited

window because, at least in my own view, this won't make

applicants rush to grasp the opportunity irrespective of how

ready or mature their applications are. But having said that, and

you've already mentioned the report by the SSAC, if I'm not

mistaken, that said that there is no harm from the thousand

names that were already introduced. But do we know any limits

that we need to bear in mind, if we go through an indefinite

process, I mean? Is there a number, a ceiling that we should be

aware of, or is there a milestone that we should then pause and

revisit the whole thing or are we safe, we know this in advance?

Thank you.

JORGE CANCIO: Thank you so much. Milagros has been asking for the floor for a

while. Would you have a point on this issue?


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MILAGROS CASTANON: I would like to speak in Spanish.

Milagros speaking. I would like to make the following comment:

We are now foreseeing a set of situations that might come up in

case of applications related to geographical issues or other

issues and probably we might be able to improve this

applications, the management of this applications. However, I

do not believe that we are not paying attention to certain

situations that might come up and that we have not discussed,

especially when it comes to generic names. And I would like to

know if you have considered the fact of keeping procedures to

observed an application. I mean, we are considering what we

cannot improve now will remain as it is and as it was expressed

in the gTLD Applicant Guidebook. So I would like to know

whether the procedure that we already know to observe an

application -- to observe a gTLD application, are we going to

maintain to keep that procedure or also foreseeing certain cases

that might come up in the future and which are related to

generic names. Thank you.

JORGE CANCIO: Thank you for that specific question. If the co-chairs would like

to react to the points made before we turn to the next topic

levels -- topic leaders.


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JEFF NEUMAN: This is Jeff Neuman. I'm -- I'll respond to the question on name

collision because I know it's very -- it's confusing. This is not the

issue that deals with variants and blocking or bundling different

names. Name collision is a term used to -- where a -- where a

company or individual has set up a private network that has the

same extension as an approved gTLD and where queries could

mistakenly go to the wrong place. There was a big concern

expressed that that would happen probably more -- much more

often than it actually did, and there were procedures that were

developed in order to minimize the -- the -- minimize that from

happening. And on the geo names that was brought up, you

know, these are good comments and we're definitely trying to

see how we can provide protections to geographic names but

also understanding that there are a number of geo names that

are either shared amongst different jurisdictions or that have the

same -- that are the same names as either company names or

also are potentially generic words. So we're doing our best to

try to resolve those and hopefully find a solution that is

acceptable to the entire community.

AVRI DORIA: And the only thing I'd like to add -- this is Avri again -- is that all

of the procedures in the Application Guidebook are up for

review, so it would be impossible to say at the moment that a

specific one would or would not be maintained in terms of


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generic names and geographical names or brand names or what

have you. So I think that is all open for discussion still in terms

of how those things will be handled. But there's no way at this

point to say that yes, a specific procedure that existed would still

exist.

JORGE CANCIO: Okay. I think that's clear. And I think that the -- the conversation

has led us naturally in a way to the work of the -- about geo

names. I think this is a most exciting topic for the whole

community, but we are under time constraints and I will allow

only up to ten minutes to have the discussion as a whole. So I

would ask Olga to introduce us to the state of thinking and

discussion within the GAC working group in at most four

minutes, Olga. Por favor.

OLGA CAVALLI: Four minutes. I get that. Thank you very much, Jorge. My name

is Olga Cavalli. I'm the GAC representative of Argentina and the

GAC vice chair, and I chair this working group about protection

of geographic names in new gTLD rounds.

I would like really to thank the organizers of this session. I think

it's extremely useful and I think it -- I hope we get a very good

outcome. I totally agree with Jeff, the GAC also wants a


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predictable process. So we are on the same page with that. The

thing is how to get there. But this is why we have this space to

dialogue. And I really value -- has a lot of value. And I am happy

to know that we will have another opportunity to make

comments like the questions that you already sent. So that is --

this is too fast for you ladies, right? Yeah, I know. I made a

promise to speak slowly. I'll try to comply with that.

So a little bit of background of this working group, which is a

GAC working group. And one thing is important to say that the

group has produced several documents which are not GAC

outcomes, not even, I would say, the full group outcome. We

also in the GAC have different positions. So it's not only you in

the GNSO have different opinions, but we also in the GAC have

diverse opinions about the same issues. So please take note of

that.

The group was formed after the GAC Durban communique

where we have this mandate in our communique saying that we

should work with ICANN to refine the rules for next rounds of

new gTLDs, and what we would like to achieve in this working

group and outcomes is lower the uncertainty and conflicts for

the applicant, for the countries, for the regions, and

communities, prevent and avoid misuse of names which are

relevant for the communities, regions, countries, and, of course,

give background information that can be useful to the GNSO in


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preparing -- and other areas of ICANN in preparing this rules for

the next round.

We started working in 2013. We have produced several

documents. All of them are in the open section of the GAC

website. In this moment we are working in two different

perspectives. One is a document to analyze which is the

meaning for -- about public interest, what does public interest

means in the terms of use of geographic names in new rounds of

new gTLDs. This is a draft document that was presented in -- in

previous meetings, and it's available if you need it. And also we

have prepared a set of best practice rules for ICANN for the

applicant. Of course, they are a draft, and I will go briefly

through them. Ooh, what happened. That's -- it's best

practices.

(Off microphone).

OLGA CAVALLI: Okay, keep talking. What happened in the first round? There

were a lot of reserved names and lists -- this is very strange --

talking with -- oh, good. In the first round we -- we had this

Applicant Guidebook with a -- several lists and names that were

reserved. What happened and what we acknowledge after the

first new gTLDs round is this list were not enough. There were

many names that were related with geographic names,


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community names, that were not on those lists and they were

requested as gTLDs and then there were conflicts among the

communities, the countries, and the companies and the

applicants that requested them. So the idea would be to refine

this rules and try to avoid this conflicts in the future.

And the -- this best practices had a previous version that had

been reviewed and refined with a new proposal made by

Switzerland which is more or less in the line of some concepts

we had in the beginning but have been re -- revamped in this

new version.

So one of the ideas would be to create -- we discussed this many

times. But I think there is -- there is -- there is value in having

this concept again. Having a repository of names. A database of

names that would be created -- and please, this is not a law, it's

just an idea because everyone then says oh, Olga wants to make

a list that has only those names there. No, no, it's an idea. We

want to discuss this idea with you. We want to open the

dialogue and see if this could be achievable. A repository of

names with geographic significance. So search applicants

should at least check the terms contained in a repository of

databases to be maintained by ICANN compiling relevant list of

terms and discrete terms with geographic significance.

Governments, public authorities, interested communities would

be eligible to request the addition of such lists and/or terms to


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the repository. And the initial sources feeding this repository

would be established in a community wide discussion process.

The strings would be also subject to an effective public

consultation period in order to give governments, public

authorities, and communities effective opportunity to raise any

concerns about such strings. I know. Such a requirement may

also entail targeted consultations to previously identified

stakeholders with the potential interest in the geographic

significance. I know. So this is one thing. The repository. Think

about it. It's not an obligation. It's just an idea for the moment.

And the interested parties should check this database, and they

should require a non-objection from the -- those -- that has

provided the names in the -- in the database. And I won't go into

much details. We already had a session on two days ago, so you

can check the transcript. We went through all these documents

in a very detailed way. So the idea is to keep on working on this

concept in the working group and perhaps send to the whole

GAC a document with this draft idea of the repository of this

consultation process and also keep on refining the document

about public interest. And also remember that the idea of this

working group is see what to do with those names that aren't in

any ISO or United Nations or formally established geographic

names list that could be easily identified in the future Applicant

Guidebook. Thank you very much.


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JORGE CANCIO: Thank you for your flexibility. I think that we definitely are

running out of time, and we have to go to lunch at 12:30. So we

have no flexibility, although I asked for it.

I have to be very strict on this. So I'm sorry for anyone who

wanted to engage on this discussion further on. I think that co-

chairs have taken note. They are aware of the ongoing work.

And we will definitely have to continue with this discussion both

here and in the PDP working group.

So it's -- we may find a solution. But now there's also another

very important topic which has been touched upon already. And

this is the topic of community-based applications. We have

Mark Carvell who has been the topic lead for a lot of time here.

And to this meeting he's bringing, so to say, a very fresh study

from the Council of Europe on this topic. So, Mark, please five

minutes at most to present the main findings that really could

be takeaways for both Jeff and Avri and all other PDP working

group members who may be here to get -- to take them home

with them. Please, Mark.

MARK CARVELL: Thank you. Thank you, Jorge. Mark Carvell, United Kingdom, for

the record. And, yes, I've been the topic lead for this particular


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issue of the treatment of applications for community-based

gTLDs in the current round with a view to defining the key

problems that have been experienced, the generally regarded

apparent failure, really, to follow through on the original vision

of the GNSO for the treatment of community-based gTLDs. I

mean, the GAC interest is very clear that it's these community-

based applications have core public interest aspects to them,

core human rights aspects to them. And that has been the

reason why we've taken a great interest in how ICANN's

processes for handling and treating these applications have

performed. We haven't been able to intervene, of course. We

have to -- it's not the practice of the GAC to intervene in

particular applications. But for some of us, it's been quite

painful to witness what has happened, the frustration that's

been experienced by a number of communities faced with

prolonged process after process. And they have limited

resources. And so -- to be able to defend their interests,

particularly when they're in contention with commercially based

applications. So that's very broadly the scope of the problem

that the GAC has discussed in the past. We had a discussion in

Marrakech. And following from that there was a sense that we

have to sort of plate all these issues, undertake some analysis.

And the Council of Europe, as a GAC observer, stepped forward

to offer to facilitate that process of preparing an in-depth

analysis. They appointed two experts to do that. Two GAC


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members, U.K. and Switzerland, assisted with that process. And

a GAC observer, European Broadcasting Union, also worked

closely with the researchers to help with the -- with their work,

which involved interviewing applicants, talking to key actors,

and talking to ICANN staff and so on. So it's a very intense, well-

performed piece of work. And, as Jeff noted, the report is now

out. It came out just before this meeting. So, obviously, not

many people have had a chance, really, to look at it. But we

really commend it as an input into work track three of the PDP.

And also we will want to see the CCT review, take note of it.

From the GAC side, I'll be commending the report to colleagues

on the GAC to review over the next two months or so and with a

view to possibly endorsing the recommendations as GAC

endorsed or GAC advice at the Copenhagen meeting. So that's a

kind of next step I envisage for the report.

I think, for the purposes of this meeting, I think I can only

basically summarize what the report has gone into. And, in

doing so, I think it will touch on some of the points that both

you, Jeff and Avri, have made earlier on about definition and so

on. Because, if you look at the report, chapter two does go --

well, chapter two, first four sentences, the human rights context

of community applications and how ICANN should have regard

to human rights when assessing applications. So that's the first

of the scene setting in the context of human rights. But then


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chapter 3 goes on usefully to define what is community and how

the concept of priority for community-based applications has

followed through in the processes. The broad definition that

was originally maybe optimistically provided then became quite

narrowed down in terms of how the Applicant Guidebook and

the community priority evaluation processes and guidelines

interpret what is a community. So how that happened is

covered in the report.

And then chapter three and four looks at the notions of public

interest and examines that in more detail. So this is, I think,

going to flesh out, perhaps, some of the more ill-defined issues

that Avri highlighted when she spoke earlier on.

On the processes, there's a chapter on community objections

and the lack of apparent -- apparent lack of consistency in how

objections were treated, how the process was implemented.

Chapter 6 on community priority evaluation and complaints

that were made by applicants about how the CPE process was

enacted.

And Chapter 7 covers accountability mechanisms, independent

review, and so on.

So the scope of it is very wide. It's very in-depth report, strongly

commended as a very substantive input into the current PDP


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process and reviews with a view to avoiding these problems in

future rounds or windows of application or however the process

might be, if there is decision to have a further opening up of the

domain name space so that the interests of communities,

people wishing to come together through a gTLD to express

themselves, to assemble, to share a common interest amongst

themselves through a top-level domain, that opportunity is fully

realized, which wasn't, in our view, certainly the U.K.'s view in

the current round.

So I hope that summary serves the purposes of this meeting. Am

I within my four minutes or whatever?

JORGE CANCIO: You're one minute over time. So you will have to buy me a beer

or something. But we still have five minutes sharp. I think you

have taken note anyway. We all have to read this study, and we

will have time to go into its details.

But I had asked the Public Safety Working Group whether they

had inputs, takeaways for you out of this session. And I'm so

sorry that we are running out of time. If you could, please

summarize it -- I don't know -- in three or four tweets and be

clear that we have to continue this dialogue with the PDP.

Would you be so kind?


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ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Jorge. Just a note that the Public Safety Working

Group -- all of this work proceeds the Public Safety Working

Group which was created last year in September in Singapore.

But we've got quite a lot of work activity that we had. And we're

continuing to do that impact on new gTLDs and most likely the

subsequent rounds. And you know, that is WHOIS and issues

around subsequent consumer protection, especially around GAC

advice and sensitive strings in new gTLDs, including child

protection. We also actively are involved in various PDPs,

including the next-generation registry directory services, the

privacy proxy implementation review at the moment. And also

under consideration is this subsequent procedure. And also

review teams at the moment the consumer trust and consumer

choice review team as well as the upcoming one, security and

stability review two and the registry directory service review

team WHOIS review team two. So I'll let my colleague Bobby

speak to specifically one or two.

BOBBY FLAIM: The one thing I was going to comment on was you had

specifically asked about the emergency back end registry

operator and the continuing operations instrument. The PSWG


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wasn't involved in that, but we are going to look into that to be

able to provide input later on.

JORGE CANCIO: I think I owe you a couple beers.

So I think that, with this, we have to conclude the meeting. As a

personal conclusion from this, I think that it's clear that we need

more time during our sessions in order to really have a dialogue.

I don't know. Perhaps 180-minute session would be too much

for our brains.

But two 90-minute sessions perhaps, yeah, apart from the

intersessional work in the PDP and in the GAC working groups

and in the GAC itself. But I think this is very valuable to have this

kind of discussion, to have your presence and, hopefully, also,

the presence of other working work track rapporteurs here. It

would really help us to understand and to keep the dialogue

going. So I very much will recommend that in Copenhagen we

have more sessions like this with more time, with more

possibilities to continue this dialogue. And I hope -- and I'm

pretty sure you will agree with this, and we will find the right

time in our schedules provided that the GAC allows for such -- for

such sessions to take place.


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Returning to more GAC internal matters, you have a zero draft

where some considerations are made about the subsequent

procedures.

Look at it. We will discuss this, of course, at the communique

session. I don't know if there will be any time before that to also

consider it in more detail.

And last, but not least, I think you will have seen that the work

tracks of this PDP working group really are touching upon a lot

of public policy issues. And apart, from these dialogue, with

more formal interactions, there is a need for individual GAC

members to take part in the work tracks in the PDP working

group. And I will continue to talk, especially to topic leaders

about the possibility of establishing a sort of informal task force

to coordinate our efforts and our inputs to this PDP working

group because we really have a lot of work to do.

With this -- I don't know. I return the mic to you, Tom, or to the

other Tom. Hello, Chair? Are you there? So, if you want to close

the session.

THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you, Switzerland. Given that we're one minute over, the

session is now closed. Enjoy your lunch. And thank you to all


of 50

who participated in the preparation and conduction of this very,

very good session. Thank you very much.

[END OF TRANSCRIPTION]

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